Opinion When did you feel we hit rock bottom?

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I can't remember exactly when but there was a Friday night game against Collingwood, we were all pumped up for it, it was our biggest game in a while and our first friday night game in donkeys, and we were down about 80 at half time. So deflating.
Was 61-0 from memory in that game. Roughly round 10 or so and from there on the rest of the season really went down hill. That game was the beginning of the end for Leppa in hindsight.
 
The worst part of the Leppa saga was that the board wanted to extend him and had to be talked out of it via the AFL dangling their assistance package in front of us. Imagine missing out on Fagan because we wanted to give a favourite son more time despite conceding 130 points a game. I think back to the 'run and gun' and the 'score 100 points' days under Leppa and cringe so hard.
From memory it seemed like Leigh was the one who needed convincing to move on. By the end of 2016, I think the majority of the board/Swanny realised we weren’t going anywhere under Leppa, but Leigh was willing to keep him on.

Thankfully the right decision was made and now the rest is history.
 
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Definitely being 61-0 down against the scum at home after they lost to the previous year's wooden spooners the week before and we got thrashed by Port Adelaide the week before.

Leppa should have been sacked there and then.

Although not finishing last that season and not getting pick 1 was the best thing to have happened to us in that era, we traded pick 2 for 3 and 16 thinking that Hugh McCluggage would be a certain pick one but we ended up getting him at pick 3 anyway and got Jarrod Berry with what ended up being pick 17.
 
For me, it was the paddlepop jumper, which represented a total lack of disdain for the supporters and the history of the club. Hard to believe now with our stable management and board, that this caused a run on the board (here is 186 pages of discussion) and the 'character' Henry Pinskier, who even posted on here. Also it was passionate supporters from BigFooty that banded together to fight the paddlepop in 2013 that generated a lot of external pressure on the board.

What a turn around in the ensuing 10 years!
 
When did we hit rock bottom? This bloke

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I'll echo the previous sentiments where on the field it felt like 2016 felt like the bottom; we battled with an Essendon side that had 12 players suspended. But by then it wasn't a particularly great shock as it had already felt hopeless over the last few years. Overall, 2013 felt like the bottom for me for the reasons mentioned previously - go home 5, Voss/Roos, the board etc.
 
Not rock bottom as a club, but the day you felt it was all going to go pear shaped for years - GWS 2014.

Massive crowd of 12,700. GWS were on the bottom of the ladder. 1 point in it at half time.

That second half was maybe the worst half of footy I've ever seen from the Lions. Browny got smashed and lost by 45 to a team that had never won away from home before. It was a procession. Best players for us were Taylor, Hanley and Paparone. Think that was the moment where I knew we were bad, but were going to be for a very long time.
 
I’ll answer my own question.

For me it was the game against the Giants in 2016.

Wet day at the Gabba, pumped by 80 (though felt like 160), and the ground was the most lifeless it’s ever been. May have been 14k there, felt like 2000.

We didn’t give a yelp and worse still, didn’t look as if we gave a damn.

There wasn’t even anger in the crowd, there was just complete resignation. We were completely irrelevant. I still distinctly remember regulars just chatting amongst ourselves with barely an interest in what was happening. Saw a lot of papers and crosswords come out. One lady brought her knitting.

Felt at that moment we could not be lower. Stayed til the final siren - drinking overpriced XXXX. Most left towards the end of the third / start of the fourth.
 
Which GWS game was Luke Power’s final game for us? I remember that being in front of like 12,000 fans or something.
 
Which GWS game was Luke Power’s final game for us? I remember that being in front of like 12,000 fans or something.
Luke retired before GWS's first year, before unretiring to join them in their debut year of 2012. He never played against GWS.
 

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2014-2018, finishing:

15th, 17th, 17th, 18th, 15th

We were bottom 4 for 5 years straight (though thankfully far more competitive in the last of them, % of just below 90)

By comparison, North have only been bottom 4 for the last 4 years.

We stank!


Funnily enough, the latter half of 2016 was probably the absolute depths of our despair, but a glimmer of hope emerged in our final game that year. Saints at Marvel, Riewoldt kicked 9, we lost by 58.

The live ladder on display showed us slipping below Essendon during the final quarter, and thus in pole position for Pick 1. It would’ve been the easiest thing in the world to just take it.

But we kicked 3 of the last 4 goals, avoided the “shame” of the spoon (by edging past the Essendon VFL side), and forfeited Pick 1.

What it meant was that we were a club unwilling to fold. We sure as hell sucked, but we refused to take the cowards way out.

The footy Gods smiled, our Pick 2 turned into Clug and Berry, and the rest is history.

2016 was rock bottom, but the good thing about rock bottom is that in retrospect you can see that it is, by it’s very nature, the turning point. The start of the journey back.
 
Good thread, good topic, great posts, great posters.

As I have been reading it has become quite clear to me how much I have repressed into the dark confines of my sub-conscience. As I am going through a litany of lists, I am triggered and reminded of our journey from the lowest of lows to the current exhilaration of potentially being premiers in a few days.

Let this be a reminder moving forward and appreciating what we now have.

Let me list another, the lowest this place has been is unbelievably this year and only two months ago, when so called Lions supporters started throwing barbs, disrespecting the people that got us here, calling for the head of Fagan, calling for replacements of coaches and football department personnel. I can't Imagine the type of person who finds reasons to shoot down the people that have transformed our club from a basket case to a powerhouse.

But i transgress. What a glorious journey.
 
When did we hit rock bottom? This bloke

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That face is triggering :sweatsmile:

2013 is when we hit rock bottom and we pretty much stayed there till 2016. Our average losing margin in 2016 was just terrible, our game plan meant that teams were always getting goals out the back. The game against the Eagles early in that year was a good representation of how bad we were and that our game plan was never going to work.

Felt like the club was going from terrible to completely irrelevant with the board decisions in 2013. There was a tiny bit of hope when the extraordinary general meeting was called when Matthews and (can't remember other guys name) and the board were under intense pressure and it felt like a good change would come. It did but there was no immediate change to what us as fans were seeing week to week. I wasn't a full member at the time but my parents were and they signed the petition for the EGM.
 
2016 onfield. Just the whole season.
2013 off-field.

If you were to single out a moment, it would have been when Bruce Mcavaney said in commentary during a game that the Brisbane Lions are just a feeder club now.
 
Not suggesting this was our lowest point, obvs, bit it's indicative of where we were at at the time. NEAFL round 1, 2016 at the Burp. Went in with 17 listeds vs 15 and...

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No talent, no system, no depth.

Our leading goal kicker from that game and what he and his housemates went through at the club was probably an example of our darkest times
 
2016 onfield. Just the whole season.
2013 off-field.
In retrospect, and at the risk of being glib, 2013 was the beginning of the end and 2016 the end of the beginning.

But if I had to pick one moment when I was shocked at where the club was, it was the ALP-right ploy to destabilise the club even further than it was during the board spill drama in 2013. Everything else was a symptom of the ineptitude of the higher-ups of the club and the board. It just took a while to right the ship completely.
 
We haven’t achieved anything yet but who would have thought we’d even be in this position from where we were 5, 10, 15 years ago?

There have been some dark, dark years and win or lose this weekend, you have to enjoy weeks like these. Who knows when it they will come round again??

There have been moments over the last (almost) 20 years where this week seemed an unattainable pipe dream. When was rock bottom for you?

Go Home 5, 2013

138 point loss against Crows, 2016

Akermanis saga, 2006

Change of jumper and logo to the paddle pop lion, 2010

Vision of a clearly put-out Bradshaw and Rischitelli touring Carlton, 2009

79 point loss to the Giants in front of around 10k at the Gabba, 2016

0 goals to half time, 17 points in total against Richmond, 2018

Angus Johnson’s reign, 2010-2013

Captain Dayne Beams u-turn, 2018

Sacking of Michael Voss to pursue an uninterested Paul Roos, 2013

Justin Leppitsch vs Zac O’Brien, 2017

Any others?
Sam Sheldon’s continued selection (2010 - 2012) Was the cupboard really that bare?
 
I can't remember exactly when but there was a Friday night game against Collingwood, we were all pumped up for it, it was our biggest game in a while and our first friday night game in donkeys, and we were down about 80 at half time. So deflating.
But someone on the match thread asked what would you say to a team that is 79 points at half time.
This is still the best online comment I have ever read
 

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Opinion When did you feel we hit rock bottom?

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